Thursday, 20 November 2025

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (22:38): (2167) My matter on the adjournment is for the Minister for Energy and Resources. There have been two government statements put out in recent days. Victoria’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report 2023 was released on Tuesday of last week I think, and on page 3, figure 2, it released a series of points:

Victoria’s 2023 emissions increased by a small amount … compared to 2022.

Emissions in Victoria are increasing. Then it goes on:

This was partly due to natural causes such as wet weather conditions … increased emissions from soil carbon in forests – these short-term … fluctuations are expected to even out … Transport emissions also contributed …

and so forth. But the fact is that, in black and white, in the government’s own document is an admission that emissions in Victoria went up. 2023 is a little while ago, but these are the most recent national figures, and that is why this was released in the way it was.

Today we got a different document, Victoria’s Climate Change Strategy 2026–30. It is a very different document. It is clearly a spruiking document, fluffing around and saying what will happen and what will not happen, but it puts a very different spin on things. Nowhere in the document does it admit that emissions have increased. With sleight of hand on the graph, it tries to show the emissions falling. It is true, if you extend the graph back a number of years, that the emissions are lower. But it is material that they have fallen in the most recent lot of data that has been released, and it is material that the government have tried to cover that up by spruiking their whole range of points. I think the minister needs to become more honest in these matters. I want the minister to be truthful in the strategy that has been released. And the strategy is not honest in another way: there is no recognition in the time period that is looked at, going backwards in the graphs, that energy costs have actually gone up in Victoria. Families are being hit hard, being clobbered from the left and being clobbered from the right, with gas costs going up and electricity costs going up. Businesses are being hit, with costs going up and up and up and up. That is not mentioned in the strategy document. There is no focus on keeping the prices low.

I think families want a balanced response. They want a response that recognises emissions on one hand but that looks at costs on the other and looks at the same time at the impact on the economy. There is nothing in there, for example, on the deindustrialisation that is occurring, the loss of businesses – (Time expired)